Flooding Mystery: Development Or Just Weather?

OVIEDO — John and Candy Collins had to go only as far as their yard several times last year to find a catch of bream, catfish and eel.

Unfortunately, they said, the fish weren't swimming in a pond, but in knee-high flood water on their farm on the outskirts of Oviedo.

The couple claim the flooding is due to improperly installed drainage systems at nearby developments and a failure by regulatory agencies to ensure that those systems are working.

Gerald Chancellor, spokesman for The Anden Group of Florida, developer of Alafaya Woods, Twin Rivers and Little Creek near the Collinses' property, said neither he nor Anden president Rick Barber was aware of the specific flooding problems at the Collinses' property. However, Oviedo city engineer Charles Smith said Anden's engineers guaranteed the runoff is draining properly.

After a year of complaining by the couple and at the urging of state Rep. Marvin Couch, the St. Johns River Water Management District recently toured the area. Inspectors, though, found no evidence to substantiate the couple's claims.

The state will monitor the flooding and take steps to resolve it if improper drainage is at fault, said Hal Wilkening, chief engineer with the District's Department of Resource Management.

Wilkening, Smith and assistant Seminole County storm-water engineer Michael Bateman blame the flooding on above-normal rainfall over the past few years and the soil conditions between the Little Econlockhatchee and the Econlockhatchee rivers.

The engineers said the soil covers a thick clay layer that prevents ground water from percolating. Though little flooding occurred during droughtlike conditions during the 1980s, they said, normal and above-normal rainfall since 1990 has caused water to puddle or to flow naturally to various waterways.

Despite the flooding potential, Wilkening and Smith said developers are allowed to build on the land because they dig ponds to hold storm water and direct any runoff to other natural or man-made waterways.

Smith said storm water from the Little Creek development west of Old Lockwood Road and the Collinses' property, for instance, drains to two retention ponds. Runoff from a large pond on the development's west side travels west to the Little Econ. Runoff from a smaller pond on the east side of the development flows through pipes under Lockwood, then northeast through ditches to a water basin separate from a basin nearer the Collinses' property.

Wilkening said he has found nothing to indicate that any development is causing the Collinses' land to flood.

Because the developer's engineers have guaranteed the runoff is draining properly, Smith said he has not inspected the site and has no plans to do so. ''I don't feel it is warranted,'' he said.

The Collinses believe more study is needed. During the first 10 years after they bought the land in 1980, they said, their land never flooded, not even after a 13-inch downpour within 24 hours in 1985. Several times since 1990, they said, water has stood two feet deep, drowning a dozen endangered gopher tortoises and killing several 30- and 40-year-old oak trees. Some neighbors have responded by building dikes or digging ditches to keep water off their land. Officials have suggested the Collinses do the same, but they have refused.

''That isn't the band-aid approach we want to take,'' Candy Collins said. ''Like everyone else, we would be ignoring the problem. Besides, all it would do is flood our neighbors. We can't do that.''